The most typical one is the excavation of Pharaoh's tomb in Tutankhamun.
Tutankhamun was the Pharaoh of the18th dynasty in Egypt, which was located in the14th century BC. He ascended the throne at the age of nine and died before he was twenty. An expedition led by Sir Canavan, a famous British explorer, and Carter, a British Egyptian and archaeologist, spent seven years searching for the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in the deep mountains of the Valley of the Kings of Egypt. It was not until June 1922 1 1 that they finally found the seal of Tutankhamun's mausoleum.
When they cut the grave, there will be an eighth time in February of the following year. The candlelight reflected the golden throne inlaid with jewels, the exquisite Pharaoh's coffin and countless boxes full of treasures, and the players were ecstatic. At this moment, they suddenly received a telegram from Cairo, saying that Sir Cana suddenly fell seriously ill and died.
Sir carnarvon is 57 years old and has always been in good health. But that day his left cheek was suddenly bitten by a mosquito. This small wound infected him with acute pneumonia and even killed him. It is said that the doctor who later examined the Pharaoh's mummy reported that the mummy also had a scar under the left cheek, which was exactly the same as the scar that Qana was bitten by mosquitoes.
Mo Ze, the archaeologist of the expedition, was responsible for knocking down a wall in the tomb to find Tutankhamun's mummy. Before long, he suffered from a strange mental disorder and died painfully.
Herbert, the brother of Sir carnarvon who took part in the expedition, died soon after. Richard Bert, who helped Carter sort out the cultural relics in the tomb, committed suicide at the end of 1929. The following February, his father, Lord westbury, also jumped to his death in London. It is said that a vase taken from Tutankhamun's tomb was put in his bedroom.
Miguel Majcher, director of Cairo Museum, is responsible for directing workers to transport cultural relics from Tutankhamun's tomb. He didn't believe in "spells" at all, and once said to people around him, "I have dealt with Egyptian tombs and mummies many times in my life. Am I okay? " Less than four weeks after these remarks were published, Mahler suddenly died at the age of 52. According to the doctor's diagnosis, he died of a heart attack.
By the end of 1930, 12 people who had participated in the excavation of Tutankhamun's mausoleum died strangely. The saying that the Pharaoh's spell appeared has spread like wildfire since then.
Carter, who discovered Tutankhamun's mausoleum, thought that he had narrowly escaped trouble and lived in seclusion, only to die in March 1939.
Until 1966, the French daily necessities company asked Egypt to transport the treasures of Tutankhamun's mausoleum to Paris for exhibition, which was approved by the Egyptian government. Muhammad Abraham, who is in charge of cultural relics, suddenly had a dream at night: if he approved to transport these cultural relics out of Egypt, he would encounter an unexpected disaster. So he repeatedly dissuaded his superiors, but tried to be ineffective and had to sign the agreement against his will. He was knocked down by a car after leaving the meeting and died two days later.
There are many similar things, and people can't help asking: How did these people die? What was the Pharaoh's curse? Some people think that the ancient Egyptians might use viruses to deal with grave robbers. 1963, Yiting Tahao, a medical professor at Cairo University, published an article saying that according to the virus of respiratory inflammation he made for many archaeologists. He believes that people who entered the Pharaoh's tomb were infected with this virus and died of pneumonia.
1983, Philip of France put forward another opinion. She thinks that it is not the virus but the mold that is fatal. Because there is a lot of food in Pharaoh's funerary objects, it will rot for a long time and form a lot of mold dust in the grave. People who enter the grave will inevitably inhale this dust, leading to lung infection and painful death.
Other scientists believe that the Pharaoh's spell came from the structure of the tomb. The design of its pyramid-shaped mound and tomb can generate and gather some special magnetic fields or energy waves, which can cause people to die. But to design such a structure, we need a higher level of science and technology than modern people. And how did the ancient Egyptians master this ability more than 3 thousand years ago?
Other views are self-evident. If it is a virus, what virus can survive in a closed space for 4 thousand years? If it is mold, the air will circulate after the grave is dug up, and the mold dust will escape soon, which will not last for many years. Right and wrong, there is no recognized correct answer so far.
The curse of Pharaoh more than 3000 years ago has not been solved yet.
Spontaneous human combustion is that a person's body automatically catches fire without touching external kindling. This phenomenon has rich historical records. Some victims were only slightly burned, while others were reduced to ashes. The strangest thing is that the chairs, beds and even clothes worn by the victims are sometimes not burned. What's more, some people are burned all over, but one foot, one leg or some fingers are still intact.
Spontaneous human combustion's case can be found in the medical reports of17th century. By the 20th century, the related literature was more detailed. There were more than 200 cases during this period.
At first, it was generally believed that this kind of bad luck mainly fell on those women who were drunk, obese and lived alone. Almost all of them spontaneously ignited on winter nights, and the bodies were beside the burning stove. Needless to say, no one was present when the accident happened. According to the view at that time, this was God's punishment.
Modern scientific and medical circles deny spontaneous human combustion's statement. Although some theories have been put forward, there is no reasonable physiological argument to explain how the human body spontaneously burns or even turns to ashes, because it is possible to burn all tissues and bones of the human body only in a high-pressure crematorium with a temperature exceeding 3000 degrees Fahrenheit. As for the charred body, it is even more mysterious whether the clothes are intact or the limbs are intact.
Bartolin recorded the earliest documented spontaneous human combustion incident in 1673, when a poor Parisian woman was mysteriously burned to death. This woman is addicted to spirits, so addicted to alcohol that she hasn't eaten any food for three years. One night, after she went to bed, she died of spontaneous combustion at night. The next morning, only her head and fingers were left, and the rest of her body was burned to ashes. This report was written by a Frenchman, Rael, who finally published the first paper on spontaneous human combustion in 800.
A man named Li Jiate provided an unusually vivid and detailed report on the bizarre spontaneous combustion of the human body. Rigat, an intern in remus, stayed in a small local hotel at the time of the incident. Miller, the owner of this hotel, has a nagging wife who gets drunk every day. On the evening of February 1725, 19, the hotel was full because many people came to attend the Canton Fair the next day. Miller and his wife went to bed early. Mrs. Miller couldn't sleep and went downstairs alone. She usually gets drunk in front of the burning stove in the kitchen. By this time, Miller had fallen asleep, but at about two o'clock in the morning, he suddenly woke up. Smelling the smoke, he ran downstairs and knocked on the door all the way to wake up the guests. When the panicked guest came to the big kitchen, he saw that it was not the kitchen but Mrs. Miller who was on fire. She lay by the fire. The whole body was almost burned out, leaving only part of the skull, limbs and several spines. Except for the floor under the body and the chair where she was sitting, nothing in the kitchen was damaged at all.
Just then, a policeman and two gendarmes were patrolling nearby. When they heard a crowd in the hotel, they went in and asked. When they saw Mrs. Miller's smoking body, they immediately arrested Miller and suspected that he was the murderer. People in the town have long known that Mrs. Miller is not only an alcoholic, but also a bitch, so they suspect that the trapped Miller deliberately killed his wife in order to fly with a maid in the hotel. The prosecution alleged that Miller spilled the remaining spirits in the bottle on his wife after she was drunk, then set her on fire, and then managed to arrange it, which made people believe that it was an accident.
It is said that the young doctor Rigat also ran downstairs at the time of the incident and saw Mrs. Miller's charred body with his own eyes. He testified for Miller in the trial, saying that the victim's body was completely burned, but the head and limbs were left behind, and the nearby objects were completely unaffected, which was obviously not caused by human factors. The court debate was fierce, and the prosecution insisted that Miller was a murderer and a murderer. Miller was found guilty and sentenced to death. However, Ricard continued to issue a statement, pointing out that this incident could never be an ordinary arson and murder case, but "God's punishment". As a result, the court revoked the verdict and declared Miller innocent. However, poor Miller also ruined his life. After the blow, he was extremely depressed and spent the rest of his life in the hospital.
Italian priest Bedoli suddenly caught fire when he prayed. He is one of the few victims who can survive for a few days after spontaneous combustion. Dr battaglia, who treated him, reported this in a Florence magazine, June 1776.
At the time of the incident, Betty was traveling all over the country and arrived at her brother-in-law's house one night. She was led by her brother-in-law to a temporary room. Because the shirt he was wearing was made of horse hair, which made his shoulders uncomfortable, he asked for his hand to separate his social ancestors from his arms as soon as he entered the room. Then, he stayed alone in his room and prayed.
A few minutes later, the priest's cry of pain came from the room, and the whole house rushed into his room at once. They saw Betty lying on the ground, surrounded by a small flame, but when they came forward to check, the flame gradually subsided and finally went out. The next morning, Betty was examined by Dr. battaglia. He found that the skin of the injured person's right arm was almost completely separated from the muscle and hung on the bone. From the shoulder to the thigh, the skin is also damaged. The most serious part of the burn is the right hand, which has begun to rot. Although Dr. battaglia treated him immediately, the injured person's condition deteriorated. He kept saying that he was thirsty and wanted to drink water, and his whole body twitched surprisingly. It is said that the chair he sat in was covered with "rotten and disgusting substances" Bedouins have been suffering from fever, falling into delirium and vomiting, and died in a coma on the fourth day.
Dr battaglia couldn't find any signs of infection in Betty. The most terrible thing is that before he died, his body had already given off the stench of rotting corpses. Dr battaglia also said that when he saw a bug crawling from Betty to the bed, his nails fell off.
Battaglia remembers that when Betty Dolly was sentenced to death for the first time, his right hand seemed to be hit with a stick, and there was a "flickering flame" on his shirt, which soon burned to ashes, but the subsidy mouth was intact. And strangely, the hand between the shirt and the shoulder was not burned, and the pants were intact. Although his hair was not burnt, his hat was completely burnt. There is no sign of fire in the room. However, an oil lamp originally filled with oil has been completely exhausted and the wick has been burned to ashes.
Dr overton published an article in the Journal of Tennessee Medical Association, describing that Hamilton, a professor of mathematics at Nashville University in Tennessee, was injured by "local spontaneous combustion". 1On October 5th, Professor Hamilton came home from college. It was very cold that day, and the thermometer recorded only 8 degrees Fahrenheit.
Suddenly, he felt a burning pain in his left leg as if he had been stung by a wasp. He looked down and saw flames several inches high on his legs, the diameter of which was the size of a silver coin, and the top was flat. He immediately slapped with his hand, but he couldn't put out the flame. Fortunately, Professor Hamilton kept calm and remembered that the flame would automatically go out without oxygen supply, so he arched his hands into cups to cover the burning place, and the fire really went out.
However, he still feels severe pain. After entering the room, he immediately took off his pants and underwear and examined the wound. He saw that the wound was about 1 inch wide and 3 inches long, and it was dry and black, extending obliquely under his left leg. He checked his underwear again and found that the place facing the wound had been burned through, but there was no sign of burning around the hole. The strangest thing is that the pants are intact, and there are many dark yellow fluff near the burnt place of underwear, which can be scraped off with a knife.
Although the wound is different from the ordinary wound in some places, the doctor who diagnosed Hamilton still treated it as an ordinary burn after examination. The wound is deep and takes 32 days to heal. After healing, the muscles around the wound still ache for a long time, and the scar is unusually blue-black.
A strange fire broke out in a village near Southampton, England, killing the Keeley family. 1on the morning of February 26th, 905, neighbors heard screams coming from Keeley's house, went in and found the house on fire.
Mr. Keeley lay on the ground, completely reduced to ashes. Mrs. Keeley sat in an easy chair, "burned to black charcoal", but still recognizable. The police found a table overturned and an oil lamp fell to the ground in the house, but they didn't understand how an oil lamp could cause the disaster. Strangely, Mrs. Keeley's easy chair didn't burn out.
1907, in Manna village near Dinabo, India, two patrolmen found a charred woman's body. They gave the smoking body and complete clothes to the judge. According to the patrolman, there was no sign of fire in the room when the body was found.
There are two sisters named Dewar in Whitley Bay near Bryce, England. They are retired school teachers. My sister's name is Margaret and my sister's name is Wilhelmina. 1908 On the evening of March 22nd, Margaret ran to her neighbor's house and told her sister that she had been burned to death. Neighbors came to her house and saw Wilhelmina's charred body lying in bed. There is no sign of fire on the bed and bed, and there is no sign of fire in the house.
In the cause of death investigation, Margaret repeatedly vowed to find the body of her sister lying in bed, just as the neighbors saw it. But the coroner thought that the bed was safe and the people lying on it burned to ashes, which was ridiculous. He accused Margaret of lying, threatened to sue her and remanded her in custody for the time being.
Neighbors and public opinion did not believe Margaret's confession, and Margaret was forced to admit perjury at the retrial. She said that she actually saw Wilhelmina catch fire downstairs, but she survived: after her horse fire was put out, she helped her sister upstairs and put her on the bed, but soon her sister died.
Although there was no sign of fire downstairs, the coroner thought this statement was more reasonable than Margaret's original statement.
The coroner declared Wilhelmina's death an "accidental burn". However, he later said that this security case was one of the strangest cases he had investigated.
On March 1953, 1 day, Mr. Wood in the marginal town of South Carolina, USA, was found burning black charcoal in the front seat of his car with closed doors and windows. At that time, his car was parked next to highway 29 1, and there was still half a box of gasoline in the tank. There is no damage to the whole car except that the windshield is sunken inward due to heat foaming.
Yang Xijin, a 78-year-old disabled person, lives atNo. 1 130, Monaque Street, Honolulu. In February 1956, his neighbors found him surrounded by blue flames. 15 minutes later, when the fireman arrived, his body and chair had been burned to ashes. However, the feet on the opposite wheelchair are intact, and even the surrounding furniture and curtains are not damaged.
The victims in spontaneous human combustion are rarely children, but Prewitt in Rochford, Illinois is an exception. Four-month-old baby 1959 died of severe burns in the spring, but his clothes were not burnt and the bedding on the bed was not damaged.
1950 10 One night, 19-year-old Miss Andrews and her boyfriend Clifford danced in a nightclub in London. Suddenly, her chest and back caught fire and burned her hair instantly. Clifford and other guests tried to put out the fire, but they couldn't save her life. Clifford testified in court that:
No one smokes on the dance floor. There are no candles on the table, and I don't see anything burning her clothes. I know it's hard to believe, but in fact I think the flame is coming from her body.
Other witnesses also agreed with him. As a result, the court ruled that Miss Andrews "died in an unexplained fire." Peterson, a 30-year-old auto worker in Pontiac, Michigan, has been depressed for the past month because of his poor health. 1959 12 13 at 7: 45 pm, he was found dead in his car, apparently committing suicide. At that time, the seat beside the driver's seat was still smoking, the exhaust pipe twisted into the carriage, and all six windows were closed. After examining his body, the doctor announced that he died of carbon monoxide poisoning, which is consistent with the speculation of suicide. However, they couldn't explain why Peterson suffered third-degree burns on his back, thighs and arms, and why his nose, throat and lungs were burned. The strangest thing is that his clothes and even underwear are not damaged at all, and the burnt flesh still stands on the unburned body hair. At first, investigators thought that the smoke from the car might be hot, but later they suspected it was murder, but none of them could explain Peterson's death.
In an accident in spontaneous human combustion, there were more than one victim, but six. The following is the report of Nigeria Herald on February 27th, 1976, 1976: a family of seven in Lagos was burned to death ... which became the most difficult mystery to answer.
According to yesterday's field investigation, everything in the wooden house was intact, and even two cotton prayer flags were neatly laid on two iron shelves ... The fire that killed six people seemed harmless to the whole room ... But judging from the serious situation of the dead burning, the objects in the room, including wooden walls and iron sheets on the roof, should have disappeared.
Although it was said before that someone poured gasoline from the window while his family was asleep and then set fire to it, yesterday's survey proved that this statement was incorrect.
Spontaneous human combustion phenomenon was not recognized by the scientific community in the 20th century. It is not included in the international classification of diseases compiled by the World Health Organization, nor in the index of biological and medical books of the United States or the National Library of Medicine. Although the police, firefighters, arson experts, coroners and pathologists have presented a lot of evidence, most doctors and scientists still believe that those seemingly indisputable cases have not been thoroughly investigated. However, not all generations reject this suspicion. In the17th and18th centuries, the spontaneous human combustion phenomenon, especially the cases that happened to drinkers, was generally regarded as the punishment of God. In the19th century, due to the progress of biology and chemistry, researchers were able to find the causes of these obscure fires from a non-religious perspective. They put forward more possibilities, including one or more of the following combinations.
* Intestinal gas burns easily.
* The human body will produce flammable gases.
* Hay piles and compost piles generate enough heat to cause spontaneous combustion.
* Some elements or mixtures will automatically catch fire once exposed to air, such as phosphorus, one of the human elements.
* Some chemicals are not active by themselves, but can cause explosions when mixed with other objects.
* The luminescence of some insects and fish indicates that there may be internal fire.
* A lot of fat contained in the human body is an excellent fuel.
* static electricity produces sparks, which may cause human body to catch fire in some cases.
However, more and more facts prove that none of the above assumptions is the real reason for spontaneous human combustion. In 18 15, a German chemist has pointed out that people who drink a lot of brandy will not catch fire even if they are close to the fire. Later, at the end of19th century, several doctors claimed that they didn't understand why people with more water would catch fire. On April 22nd, 1905, the American medical journal lashed out at those who believed in spontaneous human combustion, pointing out that "almost half of all the published events in spontaneous human combustion came from this neurotic country".
In order to test the theory that alcohol can make people highly flammable, scientists first soaked mice in alcohol for one year and then set them on fire. As a result, the outer skin of the mouse caught fire and the muscles under the skin were burnt, but the internal tissues and organs were still intact. Later, they experimented with museum specimens soaked in alcohol for a longer time, and the result was the same.
Combustible gases produced by the digestive system may indeed accumulate in the human body, causing danger. A priest in Britain was warned not to blow out the candles on the altar, lest the exhaled gas catch fire.
Static electricity may also be a cause. According to national fire protection association's fire prevention manual, the electrostatic load accumulated by the human body reaches several thousand volts, which can release electricity through the hair and generally does not cause harm. However, in some special cases, such as factories that manufacture flammable materials or hospital operating rooms that use gas anesthetics, such people may cause explosions, but there has never been a precedent for people to burn to ashes without damaging equipment.
In addition, some people put forward other natural factors, including meteor, lightning, atomic explosion in the body, laser beam, microwave radiation, business frequency sound, geomagnetic flux and so on, but how these factors play a role has not been explained. In a word, the spontaneous human combustion phenomenon is still a mystery.